Suite in Old Style
Prelude: Fanfare from the balconies - back from hunting
I. Through mirrored corridors
II. The Rose garden, by moonlight
III. Riddle of the barrel-organ player
Postlude: Hunting and Finale

ECM New Series presents the first full album devoted to the music of Dobrinka Tabakova, a composer born in Bulgaria in 1980 but raised from a young age in London. In Tabakova’s music – richly melodic, texturally sensuous, often emotionally radiant – there resides the new and the familiar, or rather the familiar within the new, and vice versa; there are the spirits of East and West coursing through the pieces, usually hand in hand; and just as the composer’s technical virtuosity is apparent, she possesses a desire, and a gift, for direct communication that can be heard in virtually every measure. The recording features Tabakova’s Concerto for Cello and Strings and the Rameau-inspired Suite in Old Style for viola and chamber orchestra, as well as three chamber works: the string trio Insight, the string septet Such Different Paths and a trio for violin, accordion and double-bass, Frozen River Flows. The performers include star violinist Janine Jansen and several of Tabakova’s former conservatory colleagues: violinist Roman Mints, violist-conductor Max Rysanov and cellist Kristina Blaumane, principal with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

String Paths podcast
George Miller in conversation with Dobrinka Tabakova